


A Most Familiar Refrain

by LadyShadowphyre



Series: Familiar'verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Bisexual Jimmy Novak, Brady is Jess's familiar, Castiel and Jimmy Novak are Twins, Castiel and Jimmy Novak worship Gaia, Castiel is a mix of regular Castiel and Endverse Castiel, Castiel's day job is a police detective, Cat!Jimmy, Claire Novak (mentioned) - Freeform, Dean Winchester is Protective of Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester is an FBI Consultant, Familiar Castiel, Hannah (mentioned) - Freeform, Jess is a witch, Jessica Moore (mentioned) - Freeform, M/M, Tyson Brady (mentioned) - Freeform, Witch Sam Winchester, cat!castiel, familiar bonds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 09:33:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17180435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyShadowphyre/pseuds/LadyShadowphyre
Summary: An unexpected thinning of the local stray cat population was usually overlooked by the authorities except when it coincided with the sudden disappearance of a well-respected man whose wife kicked up a fuss and, in the process, let slip that the man wasn’t just a normal human. That was when Agent Hendrickson had called in Dean Winchester, FBI consultant on the Supernatural, and he had called his brother Sam, who happened to be a witch. It should have been a simple case. It wasn't.





	A Most Familiar Refrain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zyre/gifts).



> Written for @doctor-zyre over on tumblr for the 2018 Sastiel Secret Santa exchange!

**D** OWN THE HALL, second door on the left. The directions were simple and easy, and that was the only part of this entire situation that was either one. An unexpected thinning of the local stray cat population was usually overlooked by the authorities except when it coincided with the sudden disappearance of a well-respected man whose wife kicked up a fuss and, in the process, let slip that the man wasn't just a normal human. That was when Sam Winchester had been called in, or more accurately _Dean_ had been called in by Agent Hendrickson as the closest thing the Feds had to an expert in the Supernatural and _he_ had called Sam.

"This whole thing smacks of a witch trying to find or coerce a familiar, and you know way more about witch stuff than I do," he had said over the phone, which was a polite code for the fact that Sam himself was a witch, and a powerful one at that. It made Dean uncomfortable to think about most of the time, their father's prejudices against all things Supernatural in general and witches in particular more difficult for him to shake off than some others, so they usually pretended that Sam had left for Stanford purely for his education and not because John Winchester had gotten it into his alcohol-soaked head that Sam's powers were the result of demon blood in his veins or a deal made with the demon that another witch had sent to kill their mother, and he had tried to kill Sam. Sam himself had been to several other psychics, natural witches, and even a priest _and_ a rabbi to assure himself - and Dean - that his powers were one hundred percent his and not the result of a demon's meddling, but by then John had gotten himself killed in a car accident that Dean had been very tight-lipped about and there was no chance to try and reconcile.

In his own cups, Dean had admitted that it was unlikely the man would have listened anyway. Not to Sam, who might as well be demonspawn in John's eyes and whose leaving was taken as confirmation of guilt rather than desperate self-preservation. Not to Dean, either, whom John had repeatedly treated more like a soldier under his command than a child in his care, and only got worse about it after Sam fled as if he expected Dean to "betray" him, too. Given the outstanding warrants for John's arrest that had turned up in the wake of his death for grave-robbing, impersonating a federal agent, and suspicion of murder, Sam was far more worried for Dean's survival than his own, and when Dean was arrested as an accessory and the agent in charge of tracking him down tried to take him in to be locked up in supermax without trial... Well, Sam had never been as sanguine about the secrecy regarding the Supernatural as his father and brother, and that was how Victor Hendrickson was introduced to the reality of the magickal arts and how Dean got himself an FBI consultantship.

Which, naturally, was why Agent Hendrickson had called in Dean when the initial investigation turned up a whole lot of nothing except for some "coincidental" traces of catnip, feverfew, and sulphur. Dean had gone, taken one look at the most recent scene, and called Sam to come out before gathering the agents and getting their reports before working up a plan of action. The plan was mostly put together by the time Sam had called Dean back with an address - just as Dean had known he would - and the ETA for his flight. Dean had promised that the perp would be in custody or neutralized by the time he got there and Sam would "only need to do clean-up" before he hung up the phone and left Sam to finish packing the materials needed for a standard cleansing spell.

Except that, intentional or not, Winchester Luck was a fickle bitch. The way Dean told it later, he and the agents had burst in on the witch mid-ritual and interrupted what Dean could recognize as an advanced demon summoning and binding with ritual blood sacrifice-- the sacrifice, in this case, being the twenty-six cats and one transformed shape-shifter who had been forcibly (and sloppily, Sam could tell from the witch's notes) bound to the witch as familiars in order to get around the requirement of spilling his own life blood for the binding. With one of Dean's special iron bullets in his shoulder, the witch succumbed to the backlash from the interrupted ritual and "lit up like Satan's Christmas tree" as he phrased it. What that translated into was that by the time Sam got off the plane, the witch was dead and everything in his home confiscated for Sam to go over with a fine-toothed comb because the witch's death had _not_ ended the tangles of spellwork covering all twenty-seven unwilling familiars.

"The only thing we got going for us there," Agent Hendrickson had told him as he drove Sam from the airport to the witch's house, "is that Novak, or the cat we think might be Novak since they can't talk, is managing to keep the other twenty-six cats calm and somewhat under control."

"Did the wife give you any way to tell her husband apart from an ordinary cat?" Sam had asked, holding up his hands placatingly when Hendrickson shot him a dark look. "I have to ask, Agent. I don't like going into a potentially charged situation blind any more than you or Dean would, and anyone who practices magic, natural or otherwise, is going to have a feel to them that animals can pick up on. If Novak is really herding cats, he'll be the easiest to talk to and the hardest to convince that the strange witch you're bringing to them is a friend. It's like," and there he had paused, casting about for an analogy the Fed would understand. "It's like dealing with abuse victims after they've been saved but see someone who has a superficial resemblance to their abuser."

"And not only do these victims not speak English, we can't get an interpreter in to translate," Hendrickson had grumbled.

"Exactly," Sam had sighed. "Best hope is that Novak still comprehends English and can translate for us if we can get him to trust that I'm not there to hurt anyone. My magic will feel different, but it's still magic."

Hendrickson had given the faintest shudder at the reminder, and Sam had chosen to believe that it was his remembering the dead witch's magic and not Sam's own somewhat impatient demonstration during their first meeting. He still felt a momentary pang of guilt over his lack of either subtlety or empathy when ripping the civilian wool away from Hendrickson's eyes, even though Dean had assured him more than once that "hard and fast and undeniable" was the only way the hard-headed agent would have believed it.

"Black-brown and long-haired with blue eyes, likes laps," Hendrickson had said at length. "No other identifying features. For all intents and purposes, when he's transformed he's a cat, just a smarter than average cat. The problem is there are _two_ cats that meet that description, minus the lap thing, and none of us can tell them apart."

"Did you try asking them which one is Novak?" Sam had asked. This time the look he had gotten from Hendrickson was droll.

"You know, under any other circumstances I would think the person asking that was fucking with me," the agent had informed him.

"I'm sure," Sam had agreed. "So...?"

"So they both meowed. In unison."

"Not much help there... Hm." Sam had frowned, looking down at the sparse notes he had for their missing shape-shifter. "Does Jimmy have a brother, do you know?"

There was a moment of silence, followed by a quiet but fervently uttered, "Son of a bitch."

"You've been hanging around Dean too much," Sam had mumbled around a carefully smothered smile, and then leaned back in the passenger seat to pretend he wasn't hearing Hendrickson calling up his team to get a more detailed profile on their missing person, including extended family.

So here Sam was, walking down the hall with his working bag over his shoulder and the hastily cobbled together file on James Constantine Novak and his older identical twin brother John Castiel Novak in his left hand. His right hand was left empty as a gesture of benevolent intent, and he hoped it wasn't too obvious to the junior agent escorting him that he really wished he was going in armed with more than just his magic. The tangles of the dead witch's spellwork floating around the house made his skin crawl, and the sooner that he could undo it and cleanse the place, the better for everyone.

The door where the cats were being kept loomed ominous and dark with the layers of spells on it to Sam's eyes. His hand tightened on the file folder in reflex when the agent reached for the door knob, but the spells showed no sign of lashing out or even otherwise reacting to the man as the knob was turned and the door opened.

The smell hit first, like a wave. Musk and cat urine mixed with the stench of fear and old blood, bottled up in the windowless room and left to stagnate. It was overlaid by a strong chemical odor, as if someone had tried to remove the stench, but without the air circulation from open doors and with the cats still shut up inside, it did more harm than good. Sam was about to tell the junior agent that, as well as suggest that the door to this room be temporarily replaced by the screen door from the house's back porch, when he Felt it.

One of his best friends at Stanford had a familiar, a moody yellow tabby called Brady who tolerated Sam but hated pretty much everyone else except for his witch. Jess had tried to describe the moment her magic had connected and resonated with Brady to Sam, explaining it as a psychic ping, a pulse and a pull at once that started off very faint but had gradually deepened from a tiny little feeling of rightness into a natural bond between familiar and witch to the point where Brady could even take human form now and then to help Jess get around the "no pets" ruling on the dorms.

This was not gentle. It was not faint. It was a punch to the gut, hard and fast and intent, and was accompanied by two - two! - sharp, surprised yowls in the otherwise quiet room. Sam swayed on his feet, clutching at his chest despite there being nothing physically there and struggled to breathe through the feeling enough to open his eyes. It probably should have been more of a surprise to see two fluffy black-brown cats near the front of the assembly staring up at him with very wide blue eyes. It wasn't. Neither was the absolute knotted tangle of magic he could see practically strangling them both, the force of the resonance punching its way through like a flooding river behind a cracking dam.

Sam swallowed.

"John Castiel and James Constantine Novak?" he rasped, looking from one to the other and back again. The twin cat-shaped beings looked at each other, then back at him and meowed in unison. He nodded back and exhaled shakily. "I'm Sam Winchester. I'm here to unravel the spells on all of you."

"Sir?" the junior agent asked uncertainly, looking from Sam to the cats. Sam tried to smile for him, but it came out as more of a grimace.

"Tell Agent Hendrickson that the situation is even more complicated than we thought," he said, flexing his hand open and reaching up to rub his eyes. "The good news is that those two are definitely the Novak brothers, but that's about the only good news I have so far. For now...." he trailed off and looked around the room at the rest of the cats, then shook his head. "For now, let's get all of them moved out of this room and get the room aired out. We can take the screen door off the porch and stick it on whichever room you put us in."

"'Us', sir?" the agent asked, looking doubtful. "You mean... you _and_ the cats?"

"Complicated," Sam repeated. "Tell Hendrickson."

There must have been something in his face that forbid asking further questions, because the agent practically snapped to attention with a "yes, sir!" and hurried off to find Hendrickson. Sam heaved another sigh and looked down to find that the Novaks had come closer. One of them was sniffing at his shoes interestedly while the other sat looking up at him with what appeared to be a sympathetic expression.

 _"Some day, huh?"_ the look seemed to say, and Sam couldn't help but laugh, a soft huff of bitter amusement.

"Yeah, tell me about it," he said, gingerly crouching down and holding out his hand for the two of them to see was empty and to get a better whiff of him. "Let's hope Dean's managed to fix his cat allergy, because if he thinks he's going to leave all this mess for me to clean up by myself, magic or not, he's got another thing coming."

 

 **D** EAN HAD NOT magically stopped being allergic to cats - and there wasn't time to convince him to let Sam actually set up the spell that would negate his allergy - so he wasn't able to help with the cats directly. Instead, he took over wrangling the agents sorting and cataloging all of the witch's belongings, guiding them in how to separate things out into harmless, cursed (which meant Sam would have to deal with it when he had the time away from the cats), and magical but inherently harmless, which Hendrickson had advised them to handle with care as part of Sam's consultant fee would come out of that category. Spell materials and ingredients could get expensive or fetch a decent price after being cleansed of the dead witch's magic. The books, too, needed to be catalogued and sorted, spell books and notes going to the back rooms in which Sam had set up camp in the hopes that one of them would hold the key to undoing the magic left behind on the cats.

This job was not nearly so easy. All twenty-seven cats - or cat-shaped beings - were bound to each other as well as to the dead witch, and with the witch dead those bonds were tangling up in the lingering spellwork on the house. That didn't even begin to touch the mess left behind on James and John - or Jimmy and Cas, as the file had said the two went by - who had spells locking them in cat shape and even stronger binding magic that, from what Sam could tell, had hijacked the bond they shared as twins so that when Cas had been abducted the bond had pulled Jimmy to the witch's side as well. He had a sneaking suspicion that the corrupted twin bond was what had doubled up the resonance of the potential familiar bond, since he could now tell that only one of the two was actually compatible as his familiar, but it was impossible to sort out which one. It was a mess, and he was trying to undo the spells on the Novaks before he got to work on the tangles of bad spellwork on all the cats, a job that was made all the more difficult when he kept being interrupted with fighting off the local Animal Control official, an oily man who had pompously introduced himself as Zachariah Adler, and who was trying to insist on taking _all_ of the cats in to be microchipped and sterilized. Right now.

"No," Sam told the officious-looking man for the fifth time that hour. "When I'm done with them, you can take all the others, but not before, and you are _not_ taking these two with the blue eyes. I know who they belong to."

"Mr Winchester," Adler started again in that snide tone that was really starting to grate on Sam's nerves, "the policy in this county is that any animal which has been on the streets unchecked for over forty-eight hours--"

"They were cat-napped and in captivity, not running wild!"

"Excuse me, sir," Agent Hendrickson broke in, his tone making it clear that the address was more a matter of barest civilian courtesy rather than any sort of deference. "As I'm sure you'll recall, this is an FBI investigation and those cats are evidence. We'll call you when the cats are no longer evidence and can be collected by your facility."

His words left no room for argument, and while the Animal Control officer spluttered indignantly about jurisdiction, it was clear he knew it. Sam returned Adler's poisonous glare with a bland smile and held in his sigh of relief until the man finally went away. "Thank you, Agent Hendrickson."

"Don't mention it," Hendrickson said, sounding almost dismissive until he shot Sam a sour look. " _Especially_ not to your brother."

"Not a word," Sam promised, then turned his head to give the two obviously relieved shape-shifters a pointed stare. "That goes for you two as well, you know."

"Mrowr?" Cas asked, blinking cutely up at Sam as if he was nothing more than a regular cat. Sam narrowed his eyes as he heard the faintest echo of a snicker in the back of his mind.

"Don't even try that with me," he warned, pointing a finger at Cas's nose close enough that the blue eyes crossed trying to focus on it. "You're not gonna be stuck meowing forever!"

"Murr," Jimmy muttered, and Sam didn't even need that distant echo of words to understand the sulky complaint.

"Well excuse me for wanting to take my time undoing all this sloppy spellwork so I don't accidentally kill you both!" he snapped, already pushed well towards his limits of patience by the Animal Control officer and in no mood for further arguing. "Believe me, we are all aware of how much you miss your wife, but if you want the chance to get back to her then let me do my damned job right!"

He left unspoken the part that, unless he could properly untangle the magic enough to sever it completely, Jimmy might not live to see his wife and daughter. It was clear that both Jimmy and Cas heard it anyway, because Jimmy looked like he'd been kicked and Cas had laid his ears back and hunched inward. In unison, the brothers gave contrite mews of apology, to which Sam heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes before reaching over to scratch between their ears, first Jimmy, then Cas.

"You're forgiven," he said, more calmly than he really felt. "And I'm sorry for snapping."

Cas tilted his head back to lick the side of Sam's thumb affectionately while Jimmy butted his head against his arm. A low cough reminded all three of them that Hendrickson was still in the room, and Sam cocked one eyebrow up at the man in silent question.

"You, uh, actually understanding what they're saying?" the agent asked, looking a bit discomfited despite the clear interest in his voice at the answer. Sam shrugged one shoulder and settled back in his chair.

"Yes and no," he said as the Novaks took that as a sign of their welcome and immediately took up position on his lap. Sam obligingly began to pet them both even as he expanded upon his answer for Hendrickson. "The meowing itself doesn't actually have set meaning beyond what meaning they assign to it with what they're actively projecting as trying to say. That's what I'm picking up on, like someone talking from two rooms over. The thing is, it's getting easier to pick up, and I can't tell if it's just me getting used to, uh, tuning in to that mental frequency, or to this proto-bond between the three of us getting stronger, which is another reason they want me to hurry, even though I really can't."

"What happens if it gets too strong before you get them untangled?" Hendrickson asked. Jimmy's ears went flat against his skull and Cas gave a displeased growl, but both of them huddled down further into Sam's lap save for where they were arching into his hands.

"If it gets too strong, it won't matter which of them was originally supposed to have the most compatible resonance as my familiar because they'll both be stuck with me," Sam answered. "That would mean both of their lives being upset unless I drop out of Stanford--" He raised his voice as both Novaks let out loud yowls of protest in unison. "--which neither of them want me to do." The pair subsided. "Add to that the need to take Amelia and Claire, and Hannah Major into account, and it's best for the proto-bond to not develop into a full bond before that demon witch's hack job spellwork is completely gone."

"Should I even ask how that's coming?" Hendrickson asked with a knowing look. Sam's answering smile was rueful.

"Slow and steady," he admitted. "I know you're hearing a lot of complaints from me about how bad this is, but I think I've worked out how to unravel the section of magic trapping them as cats, which should help the rest of it go faster."

"Meowr?"

"Well, for starters," Sam answered, glancing down to see that Cas was sprawled bonelessly across his legs while Jimmy was listening intently, "having opposable thumbs would mean you could help me search the books to find the information we need faster." Jimmy's tail twitched and he butted his head up into Sam's hand. Sam obliged him with another scritch behind his ear, watching the blue eyes squeeze closed in pleasure. Sam watched him for a moment, then added in a lower tone, "That, and I'm a bit concerned that using my powers to keep interpreting what you both are saying is what's pushing this proto-bond further along more quickly than it should be, so you two having human vocal cords again should slow that down, too."

"Murr~?" Cas asked, cracking one eye open and curling his tail around Sam's wrist, a move that Sam had seen Brady use with Jess before. He knew what it meant with Brady; he wasn't sure what to make of it from Cas. Then Cas nudged his head up into Sam's hand, much like Jimmy had, and Sam figured that was as good as a translation.

"The point is to take the locks off your transformation ability, not switch which form you're locked into," Sam pointed out. "So yes, you can still hop into my lap for petting if you want."

"Mrowr~!"

Sam gulped. No need to translate _that_ . Normal cats did _not_ wink like that. Jimmy gave a low growl of admonishment and swiped at the back of his brother's head with one paw, though Sam noticed that his claws were carefully kept retracted. Cas responded with a reproachful hiss, then proceeded to ignore everyone in the room by rolling over and beginning to groom his tail in a pointed display of flexibility only a cat could manage.

Sam felt faint.

"Sounds like you've got things under control here," Agent Hendrickson commented, either clueless about the turn things had taken or pretending not to notice for Sam's sake. Whichever one it was, he mercifully refrained from clapping Sam on the shoulder as he passed. "I'll let you get on with it, then, and see if I can't get an official order keeping Animal Control the hell out of our investigation and out of your way. Let me know when anything of significance happens?"

"Ye--" Sam stopped himself and cleared his throat to try and rid his voice of the strained tone it had taken on. "Yes, of course. You and Dean, the moment something happens."

"Good," Agent Hendrickson nodded and left the room, careful to keep the other cats from escaping through the screen door as it opened and shut. "Don't work too hard!"

"Murow?" Jimmy asked, tilting his head up to give Sam a look of concern. Sam swallowed and managed a smile for the younger of the twins, stroking down his spine as he gave Cas a scritch behind his ears so he wouldn't feel left out while ignoring them.

"It's possible, sure, if I forget to take breaks for things like food or sleep, I could burn myself out or make a mistake because I was too tired and low on blood sugar to focus," he explained. When the concern increased and Cas went very still, he hastened to add, "I'm nowhere near that point yet, though. That level of hyperfocus is usually saved for, uh, life or death cases or, you know, finals."

Cas gave a full-body shudder, then twisted around to shuffle closer into Sam and press close to his core, rubbing his head against the center of Sam's chest. Jimmy, too, shifted in closer, but his nuzzling was directed towards his brother, his pink tongue darting out to groom the closest ear. Sam got the impression that Cas had suffered through final exams more than Jimmy had, whatever the reason had been, and Sam curled his arm around the fluffy feline body in his best approximation of a comforting hug.

"Yeah, I'll be glad when I can put those behind me for good, too," he murmured, then sighed. Speaking of putting stuff behind him... "You both might as well get comfortable. I'm only halfway through this book."

Cas grumbled a little under his breath, but lifted his head and twisted around to look at Jimmy. The two stared at each other for a long, obviously speaking moment, then arranged themselves in a tangle of limbs right on Sam's lap, for all intents and purposes getting very comfortable indeed while keeping Sam pinned in place. Whatever, Sam could deal with that.

"Hope you're both good with being a book rest," he muttered, dragging the book he had been perusing off the desk and setting it down gingerly in the middle of the furry tangle. One of the two sighed, he couldn't tell which, but neither offered any further protest, and so Sam bent his attention back to trying to parse the deceased witch's cramped and thick-lined handwriting. Hex bag configuration for a love spell, no.... Another hex bag configuration for turning the target inside out, no.... An attempt at a love potion recipe that stopped two thirds of the way through writing out the fifth ingredient, no.... A hex bag configuration for concealment... he scanned the ingredients, but moved on when it proved to be less benign and much less intuitive than the concealment runes Sam already used. Binding spell anchors--

Sam frowned and leaned closer, barely hearing the muffled "mrowr" of the cat his stomach was now pressing up against. The spell was just as counter-intuitive as the rest of the book, but the configuration of rune clusters described was stable. Sam studied the diagrams that showed etching the runes into clay and lining them with blood and black sand before hiding them inside of a clay figure and baking....

Dean picked up his phone on the second ring, before Sam had even consciously registered pulling his own phone out and pressing the speed dial. _"Sammy?"_

"Dean," Sam answered, and his voice sounded strange to his ears. "Dean, when you were cataloging the perp's belongings, did you find a clay statue, maybe two clay statues, in the shape of cats?"

 _"Sounds familiar,"_ Dean answered, an audible frown in his voice. There was the sound of muffled footsteps, then of things being shifted around. _"Yeah, here they are, pair of fired clay bookends shaped sort of like cats. Guy obviously wasn't an artist. Why?"_

"They're the anchors holding the binding spell on Cas and Jimmy's shifting ability," Sam answered. He felt dizzy. He felt _giddy_. Both cats had raised their heads on either side of the book to look at him, no longer even pretending to sleep. Hastily, Sam set the book back on the desk and shifted the phone to between his shoulder and ear. "Dean, I need you to do something for me now. When I tell you, I need you to smash both of those bookends, just completely shatter them, okay?"

 _"You got it, Sammy,"_ Dean told him, all business. More footsteps, and the sound of a door opening and closing. _"I'm out on the flagstone patio. Say when."_

Sam set one hand on each Novak, resting his hands carefully over their necks and shoulder blades. The spellwork on the brothers was still as much of a tangled mess as ever, but Sam could follow the threads, and now that he knew to look for them he could follow which threads stretched out from both Jimmy and Cas in the direction of the patio where Dean stood with the statues, thin and inert, but solid. Mentally, he Reached for those threads, feeling along their length until he found where they burrowed into the brothers' cores, winding around their internal magic like a coiled snake, ready to bite down the moment either one tried to reach for that power. The blood was pounding in his ears as he grabbed hold of those threads and prepared to rip them out. "Now."

There was a distant sound of ceramic breaking on stone and Sam Pulled on the cords _hard_. Light erupted through the room, sending normal cats scattering for cover as sharp claws dug into Sam's legs. Two cats screamed in pain, a high yowling that deepened and grew louder as it went on, the sharpness of the claws disappearing beneath a sudden, crushing weight on his legs and groin, the fur beneath his palms disappearing beneath cloth.

The screaming stopped.

The light faded.

Sam sucked in a mouthful of air, distantly aware of Dean yelling his name amidst threats and pleading, but he couldn't speak. He couldn't move. His body felt like jello, his limbs like lead, everything wrung out and shaking and really, it was probably a good thing the dead witch had been so sloppy, because he had had plenty of raw power to back up those sloppy spells. He felt a warm trickle of liquid sliding down over his lip from his nose before it dripped copper-tasting iron into his mouth, but he couldn't even lift a hand to wipe it away.

And then there was a hand cupping his face, and a thumb that wasn't his swiped away the blood. Another hand he didn't have gently plucked his phone off of his shoulder and disappeared with it. As he struggled to open his eyes, he heard an unfamiliar light tenor voice saying, "Dean Winchester? This is Jimmy Novak. Your brother's alive, but he feels very weak, and he's suffered a nosebleed."

"S'normal," Sam tried to say, but the words came out as a barely intelligible rasp. The hand that was cupping his face felt warm, and he unconsciously leaned into it.

"He says it's normal," the tenor voice went on, though it sounded more like a question. There was a pause, and then, "Yes, it worked. Cas and I are in human form again, and we can both feel the flow connecting us with our other forms."

"We can also feel Sam more strongly," a second tenor voice, rougher and with a bit of a smoker's rasping edge to it, said from a little closer to Sam's head. "The brute force method of breaking Deacon's spell worked, but it put him and his power in closer contact with our cores than before. The bond is growing."

"It means I need to call my wife," the first voice picked up. "And Cas needs to call... what's her name? Hailey?"

"Hannah," the second voice corrected. "Not my wife or my girlfriend, but she should be informed of the situation so she can either relocate or find a new partner."

"Cas...."

"Jimmy, I know it's different for you, you're married with a kit so you don't want to give in to the pull, but I know you feel it. I know you feel _him_."

Sam's eyes did not want to open, heavy and swollen and gritty the way they got when he'd been up for three days straight and had run out of caffeine three hours ago. He mustered what little energy he could gather and forced them open anyway, peering through the blurs until they cleared enough to show him the owners of those voices.

It was like looking at someone staring into a funhouse mirror. There was the same black-brown hair, the same angled jaw, sculpted nose, cheekbones, the same piercing blue eyes locked on each other. The one holding Sam's phone to his ear was clean-shaven and wearing a white button down shirt and blue tie beneath a tan overcoat, apparently what he'd been wearing the night he disappeared while taking out the trash. The other one wore a faded bluish gray t-shirt with the Led Zeppelin _Icarus_ outline beneath a beaten brown leather jacket. Both of them turned to look at Sam when a tiny noise escaped his throat, and when they spoke it was in perfect unison. "Sam, are you okay?"

"Twin fantasy," he choked out past the exhaustion and hysteria building inside him, and just managed to see Jimmy's face turn scarlet as Cas's face split into a wide grin before the wave crested and swept over him, and his eyes rolled back and everything went dark.

 

 **W** HEN SAM CAME to again, he was in a bed and there was weak morning sunlight streaming in through one of the windows. He only got a moment of looking at his changed surroundings before the pounding in his head reasserted itself and he squeezed his eyes shut with a low groan of pain. His mouth was dry, his head felt like the drum kits of an amateur percussion ensemble, the rest of his body ached like he had run a marathon, and he couldn't string enough brain cells together around the pain to think clearly enough to remember what happened.

Cool, dry fingers slid across his brow and into his hair, brushing loose strands back out of his face and carding gently through his hair. The bed dipped near his hip as someone sat beside him, blocking the light from the window. He felt the skin of someone's wrist touching his forehead before the fingers returned, stroking through his hair gently. The throbbing in his skull began to recede and Sam cautiously opened his eyes again.

The figure sitting beside him was backlit by the window. Sam could make out broad shoulders and short, tousled hair before his eyes opened. Sam's breath caught. The eyes were human, rounded pupils instead of feline slits, but he knew that blue. With his face in shadows, it was easy to draw the connection to the two identical dark-furred cats who had been his companions the last two days, the ones he vaguely remembered changing form after the spell trapping them as cats had been broken. Becoming two very attractive identical dark-haired men.

There was a shift of shadows across the man's face and a flash of white teeth before a light tenor voice that sounded roughened from sleep or smoke said, "Hello, Sam."

He knew that voice. "Cas?"

The flash of teeth was longer this time, a broad grin stretching over the shadowed features. "Ha! Jimmy owes me ten bucks now." Seeing the puzzlement that Sam knew must have been on his face, Cas explained, "He didn't think you'd be able to tell us apart one on one."

"I might not have," Sam admitted. "I remember hearing you and Jimmy speaking after the spell broke, though. Your voices are different."

"Smoke inhalation," Cas said, nodding as he confirmed one of Sam's guesses. "Regular painkillers and opiates don't work right for shape-shifters, so whenever I've been injured on the job the docs write me a prescription for medicinal cannabis. Good for easing the pain and getting my brain and body to relax, but not so good for my voice."

"Yeah," Sam agreed, biting back the urge to assure Cas that the roughness was sexy as hell. From the way those blue eyes squinted, Sam suspected the shape-shifter had heard it anyway through their strengthened proto-bond. Remembering that the file on John Castiel Novak had said the man was a police detective, he covered his own traitorous hormones by saying, "I hope your coworkers don't give you too much trouble over it."

"Nah," Cas said, his shoulders lifting in a shrug. "Nobody in my unit would since I tend to get most of those injuries saving their asses, and everyone else in the precinct who might try to start shit is either scared of me, scared of Hannah, or scared of Captain Cohen."

That was reassuring on one hand, but on the other hand it also did not argue well for Sam if it came to the point where he had to explain to Captain Cohen that his best detective was going to be saddled with a ride-along witch right after he'd been abducted, even if Sam wasn't the witch who had done the abducting. It also brought up another important point. "Did you get a chance to call Detective Major yet?"

"I called her last night after we got you to bed," Cas assured him. "She's used to getting dragged out of bed at weird hours, so she only grumbled a little bit about it. I gave her my report on the situation and Agent Hendrickson's number, and she promised to give it to Cohen when she went on shift."

"And before you ask," another voice, the lighter and less raspy version of Cas's voice, piped up from the door, "I just got off the phone with Amelia."

Cas and Sam both turned their heads to see Jimmy leaning against the door jam. He was watching them both with an unreadable look on his face that shifted into a friendly, almost affectionate smile when he saw them both looking at him.

"Bet she was glad to hear from you," Sam offered, almost drowned out by Cas asking, "So did you ask her?"

"She and Claire were both glad to hear from me, yes," Jimmy said, apparently choosing to ignore his brother for the moment. "Don't be surprised if Amelia insists on dragging you home to cook you dinner in thanks, either, because she already told me to pick your brain for favorites and food allergies."

"But did you _ask_ her?" Cas repeated with a particular emphasis that made Sam blush to remember the same tone in a much more feline noise the day before. "You know, since you're all about asking permission before you have to ask for forgiveness or go to Confession--"

"I'm hardly a regular for Confession anyway," Jimmy muttered with a roll of his eyes. "What would I even say? 'Bless me Father, for I have sinned, I'm not actually Catholic because I turn into a cat a lot and just come to church because it makes Amelia happy'? That the agreement to raise Claire Catholic lasted only as long as it took her to sprout fur and a tail?"

"That you're dodging the question about whether or not you asked your wife if she minded that you may be getting up close and personal with our handsome rescuer in a decidedly non-Biblical sense?" Cas broke in with a sarcastic drawl. His fingers remained gentle where they were still carding through Sam's hair, and Sam really didn't want him to stop... but he was starting to suspect that Cas was shifting his pain which, while something he had heard familiars could do for their witches, did not bode well for keeping the bond from strengthening. The fingers stilled, and then Cas added, a rueful note under the rasp, "Our very intelligent and handsome rescuer. You owe me ten bucks, by the way."

"Figured you out, huh?" Jimmy grinned. Sam was interested to note that Jimmy's grin was more lightly playful than the mischievous grin Cas had sported the night before and wondered if that was a difference between their personalities or just a matter of at whom the grin was being aimed.

"He pays attention to details," Cas was saying with a mix of pride and sheepishness. "Even when he's just been knocked flat from magical backlash. He remembered what our voices sound like from hearing us last night."

"Very clever," Jimmy said, and Sam could tell he meant it. He blushed faintly, and an odd look crossed Jimmy's face. "Do you remember anything _else_ about last night, Sam?"

For a moment, Sam's mind went blank, unable to recall anything at all from the night before, much less what Jimmy had to be thinking of to put such a look of wary uncertainty on his face without crossing into outright trepidation. And then, the fog around his mind melted away, and he could remember looking up through barely cracked eyes at Jimmy's face times two, Cas's face slightly closer than Jimmy's as they both turned towards him and asked if he was okay, and he had said--

Sam's face went beet red. "I am so sorry! That was completely inappropriate and I never should have said it."

"Oh, no, you absolutely should," Cas piped up with that familiar audible smirk that he'd managed to convey even when meowing. He then proceeded to break Sam's brain further by adding, "Just maybe not when you were in no state to follow up on it."

"Cas," Jimmy sighed as Sam tried and failed to process what he'd just heard. To Sam's surprise, Jimmy left the doorway and came to sit in the chair that Sam only now noticed had been dragged to the side of the bed, and was probably where Cas had sat until Sam had stirred awake and he'd moved to sit on the mattress instead. "In case it wasn't clear, Sam, while what you said was unexpected, neither of us were offended by it."

"Quite the opposite, if we're being honest," Cas added. "Teasing aside, Sam, you are a _very_ attractive man, even leaving aside the pull of your magic."

The mention of his magic was enough to pull Sam's head back out of the downward spiral of lust his hormones were leading him on. Bracing himself, he cautiously shifted away from Cas's hand in his hair - he did not miss the flash of disappointment that crossed the man's face as he did, but the pounding headache mercifully did not return - and wiggled around until he could sit up and face them both. This had the added benefit of bringing Cas's face out of the shadows so that Sam could see him properly, and immediately he could note the differences between him and Jimmy, Cas's stubble slightly more prominent yet not quite hiding the scar on his neck that he'd felt on the occasions when he'd petted the cat-shaped Cas.

"It's even easier to tell us apart with our clothes off," Cas said "helpfully" when he noticed to where Sam's eyes had dropped. Sam flushed again - he was doing that a lot around these two - and dragged his eyes up again.

"Sorry," he mumbled.

"It really is fine, Sam, we promise," Jimmy assured him. "I don't know how many shape-shifters you've ever run across...?"

"Uh," Sam floundered, because he _had_ run across a couple of different types of shape-shifters during his time being dragged around the country, but in those days his research had been forcefully geared towards how to identify and _kill_ them, and he'd never encountered any kind like the Novaks before. Jimmy and Cas shared a look and a nod.

"Hunter background?" Cas was the one to ask. When Sam nodded reluctantly, he smiled. "It's not that much of a surprise. 'Winchester' is actually a pretty well-known name, though not with a very good reputation, and your brother threatened me with silver if I did anything to hurt you."

"I am _so_ sorry," Sam said again, mortified beyond measure. He was interrupted by Cas's laugh, and had to swallow back the whimper that wanted to break free at that far too sultry for Sam's sanity sound.

"He's your brother and he worries," Cas said, winking. "It's practically in the older brothers' handbook to threaten their little brothers' suitors."

"Cas gave Amelia a particularly creative shovel talk when he found out we were getting serious," Jimmy drawled. "Which, incidentally, led to her finding out I'm not exactly human. Gotta give her credit, she didn't faint when I showed her the cat face."

"She's gotten better about understanding the differences between shape-shifter instincts versus human morality, too," Cas admitted, albeit with a grudging tone. Jimmy sighed.

"That's definitely more because of Claire than me," he said, reaching up to rub the bridge of his nose. "She kept trying to find a middle ground between her Catholic upbringing and my Gaia-worship and shape-shifter instincts as if they were one whole big thing instead of two separate things. Now that it's obvious Claire's taking after me, she's making more of an effort to understand what's instinct and what's not."

"And?" Cas asked, that pointed tone back in his voice.

"And she's going to pray for us to get through the spell-breaking without any further trauma  - to any of us, Sam included - and focus her own energies on what she can do to keep Claire grounded and safe until I can take over again," Jimmy said with another sigh. "She didn't actually bring up the Catholic procedures for annulment again, but I could tell it was on her mind."

 _What does he mean by 'again'?_ Sam thought, but clenched his teeth against actually saying it aloud. His chest constricted sharply in concern when both Novaks straightened up and glanced at him. "You heard that, didn't you," he muttered.

"The bonds between the three of us are a lot stronger now," Cas admitted, nodding. "If it's not a fully fledged bond already, it's because you're right about only being bond-compatible with one of us and the way we're still all tangled up is trying to stretch one bond between two people into two bonds between three people using my bond with Jimmy as the carrier."

"So we need to get back to work untangling the rest of the spellwork on you both and the abducted cats," Sam said and scrubbed his hands over his face. It wouldn't be the first time he'd had to hit the books after a fight, and not even the first time after a magical backlash, but it was still not going to be fun. "You two are going to help read this time, right?"

There was a moment of silence, and Sam peeked through his fingers to see Cas and Jimmy having a silent conversation with their eyes and facial expressions in much the same way Sam frequently did with Dean. Sam deliberately kept himself from trying to tune into what they were saying to each other through the bond, and eventually some sort of conclusion was reached in Cas's favor. The two turned back to him, Cas minutely smug, Jimmy serious.

"We'll do whatever we can to help," Jimmy started.

"But we're going to need to take it in shifts," Cas finished. "As we said, you're a _very_ attractive man--"

"And the pull of your magic is as strong and alluring as the rest of you," Jimmy broke in with an apologetic grimace. "So we need to take turns helping you research--"

"While whoever isn't hitting the books with you takes a turn keeping the cats calm," Cas sighed. "They want the spells broken as much as we do--"

"But most of them aren't of familar stock," Jimmy explained. "So while they know _something_ is wrong, they can't tell _what_ and barely understand the _who_ and _why_."

"So which one of you is with me first?"

"Cas," Jimmy said at the same time Cas said, "Me."

"Alright then," Sam said, stretching his arms cautiously over his head, testing his range of motion and pretending not to see the way the Novak brothers' eyes swept over him. There would be time enough for that after the spells were gone... he hoped. "Let's get to work."

 

 **W** ORKING WITH CAS was not what Sam had expected. He had actually worried that it would be like trying to research with Dean, exchanging his brother's sarcastic teasing for Cas's suggestive flirting. He was pleasantly surprised to discover that Cas "on duty" was focused and serious, methodical in his review of the books with crisp, clear handwriting for his notes. He drew Sam's attention to passages that seemed important or connected to the hodgepodge ritual his erstwhile kidnapper had used, and was as polite and professional as anyone might wish from a police detective assigned to assist a researcher. The one and only time that changed was when, without actually changing his voice tone from the more serious "Detective Novak" intonations, he said, "Sam, if you don't stop biting your lip like that, I may very well be unable to stop myself from bending you over this table and ravishing you."

"Is that a challenge?" Sam's traitorous mouth blurted out, leaving Sam flushed and trying to hide behind the book he was holding.

There was a pause, then Cas answered with just the barest hint of a sultry tone, "Is that a flirtation?"

"Maybe," Sam mumbled, ducking his head to try and hide his face behind his hair.

Cas gave another of those low, throaty chuckles, but when Sam finally dared to lift his head again the other man was bent studiously over the book in front of him. It was several minutes before Sam could focus properly on the research, and over an hour before he stopped being self-conscious about whether or not he was biting his lip.

When Cas switched with Jimmy, Sam actually didn't notice at first. The changeover was smooth and silent, with Cas getting up to put away the book he had just finished and stepping around the desk in one direction while Jimmy moved around the other direction and slid into the seat his twin had just vacated with a different book. They had the same serious expression and focus on the task, and the scratch of Jimmy's pen on the paper when he took notes on a section he was reading through had the same rhythm as Cas's.

What drew Sam's attention to the switch was actually something completely innocuous: Jimmy was a fidgeter. Fifteen minutes into researching and he was idly tapping his pen or jiggling his leg. It wasn't particularly intrusive or distracting by itself - Sam had certainly worked alongside much less considerate restless students - but it was just a bit jarring after Cas's stillness. Jimmy was also the one to get up and leave the room only to come back with a plate of sandwiches that he said Dean had brought over from a nearby deli.

"Your brother can't tell me and Cas apart, by the way," he added as he sat down again and pushed the plate towards Sam. "I'm not sure if that's just him or if Cas has been messing with him."

"Do I even want to know what he said, or should I just apologize for him?" Sam asked, glancing up warily. With Dean, it really could be anything.

"He asked me why 'Jimmy' seems so eager to seduce you when he's got Amelia and Claire to, uh, 'play house with'," Jimmy shook his head. "Fair warning, I went off on a rant about the profound nature of a bond between a witch and their familiar that's more sacred than some Catholic marriage and that he should show some respect."

"Is that really how you see it?" Sam asked. He knew how some witches viewed the bonds they had with their familiars, and he had always seen it as something akin to the ultimate partnership, but he had never had occasion to ask any familiar other than Brady how they viewed the bonds they shared with their witches.

"Honestly, yes," Jimmy admitted. "To find a witch whose magic resonates so perfectly and completely with us to the point where a bond forms naturally without any tricks or spells or potions? It's like the human stories about soulmates. For a lot of us shape-shifters, it's like a dream come true."

"Oh," Sam breathed, blinking. That definitely fit with the seeming inevitable pull they were experiencing. "Wow."

"Heh," Jimmy smiled a little and ducked his head, looking pleased by the reaction. The smile faded after a moment and he added, "Since I wasn't sure if Cas _was_ messing with him making him think he's me, I didn't bother explaining that Cas is the one flirting with you the most, but... It's pretty much unheard of for a bond like this to form between a witch and two familiars, and given the uncertainty over exactly which of us is resonating with you...."

"You want to be sure," Sam finished, nodding. He could understand that. "And you have your kit to think about, too."

"Claire," Jimmy was looking pleased again. "I'm not as worried about that as I might have been if you weren't you. I mean, you are absolutely not dropping out of Stanford no matter what happens, but the fact that you were considering it as an option to avoid uprooting _our_ lives? Whichever one of us really is yours will probably spend more time reminding you to think about yourself and your needs than ours."

"Do you want it to be you?"

There was a pause, then a quiet and serious, "I would be honored to have you for my witch."

"But?"

"But... I do love Amelia, and seven years of being as good a husband to her as I can won't just disappear overnight. You deserve better than to have to put up with the inevitable moodiness."

"You deserve not to have to make a choice," Sam insisted softly, wanting to reach out to Jimmy, hug him or touch his hand or even scratch behind his ears like he did when he was cat-shaped. He restrained himself from doing any of those things with effort. Probably sensing both desire and restraint, Jimmy gave him a small but firm smile and reached out to take Sam's hand instead, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"There isn't a choice," he said as he released Sam's hand and picked up the book again. "But thank you for wanting to give me one."

Sam took his cue from Jimmy and turned his attention back to the books. It was harder this time, because now Sam was thinking about what kind of culture shape-shifters must have that Jimmy didn't think he had a choice about being with Sam if he was the one bonded and not Cas. As much as he liked Jimmy, Sam wasn't sure he could deal with his own guilt of maybe being the reason Claire's parents split up, if it came down to that.

"Don't go borrowing trouble we don't need," Cas murmured in his ear from just behind Sam's chair as warm hands came down to knead at the tense muscles in his neck and shoulders. "Gaia is far more fair and just than the Catholics' God. Everything will work out."

"Eavesdropping again, Cas?" Jimmy spoke up from across the table before Sam could say anything. Sam felt Cas's arms move as he shrugged, though he didn't stop the massage.

"Maybe a little? Neither of you are being particularly quiet." His thumbs dug into the knotted muscles at the base of Sam's neck and Sam let out an involuntary moan as the tension gave way. His moan was echoed by both Cas and Jimmy, making him flush. It took Cas a moment, but he picked up the massage again, working the tension out more gently as he added, "Though speaking of not being quiet, what's going to happen to the cats?"

"You both heard Adler," Sam mumbled. "Though I'm pretty sure Hendrickson hates the guy as much as we do and might be willing to look the other way if they just happen to escape once the spellwork breaks."

"Have I mentioned that I love the way you think?" Cas practically purred in Sam's ear. Sam could not have told anyone what the words on the page in front of his eyes said, so great was his distraction. He started to turn the page anyway, only for Cas to remove one hand from his shoulder to stop him. "Wait, don't... What's that part there at the bottom about sympathetic resonance?"

"What?" Sam shook his head to clear it and let the page drop back. Cas pointed to the section of spidery writing that was different from Deacon's more compact hand, and Sam leaned forward to read it, working through the strange turns of phrase as he read:

_Though with sympathetic resonance, in that one might connect between two of like kind and temperament, whose combination will increase the resonance beyond capacity of one--_

"This is it," Sam breathed, his eyes widening. "This is at least half of it, how he took your bond and amplified it to tie into all the others. This is it!"

"I think I found the other part," Jimmy spoke up, sounding both distracted and excited. " _'Blood to blood, shared between witch and familiar, can amplify the conduit of magick between witch and working...'_ Yes, here's the diagram of the ritual, and I definitely remember those rune clusters."

"Thank Gaia," Sam murmured as he slumped back into his chair and Cas's hands. He felt the twin flares of surprise and pleasure from the Novaks and couldn't help the soft smile. "Good job, both of you."

"We've got the spells' pieces now," Cas said, squeezing Sam's shoulders. "We can worry about breaking them tomorrow morning."

"You need another solid night of sleep before wrestling with Deacon's magic again," Jimmy added, snagging a piece of paper from the edge of the desk to mark the place in the book where he'd found his part. "And we want one more night of getting to sleep with you."

"As cats," Cas clarified when Sam's face once again went beet red. A little more wickedly, he added, "We'll save the other kind for afterwards... uh... Sam? Did you just squeak?"

Sam, who had indeed made a noise in a register that he could have sworn had not belonged to him since he hit puberty, buried his face in his hands and groaned under his breath. "Can't I at least take you on a date first?"

There was a moment of silence, during which Sam resolutely did _not_ look up, and then Jimmy said, "Well, we do need to figure out something for dinner...."

 

 **D** INNER BECAME EASIER to accomplish when the plan - date and an early night for Sam to get plenty of sleep - was explained to Dean. Given free reign in the kitchen, he managed to create a passable feast that the three of them could eat in the privacy of the remote and FBI-guarded house. It might not have been the typical image of a romantic date, but it was private and intimate and allowed the three of them to spend time together sharing a meal and talking while all three of them had opposable thumbs. When they had finished eating, the Novak brothers shuffled Sam back to the bedroom under only a token protest. He was yawning by the time he reached the bed and made no further protest about falling into it, drifting off to sleep with the warm weight of two small and furry bodies draped over his back.

In the morning, all three of them carried the books into the room with the cats. Sam consulted the books one last time, then marked out a runic circle with chalk and, after getting two very pointed glares from Jimmy and Cas, marked out stabilizer points for the two shape-shifters to join him in the circle, which they did after changing back into their cat shapes. All of the normal cats milled around the edges of the room, hissing softly and giving the occasional plaintive mew, but none of them approached the trio in the chalk lines. Sam whispered a soft prayer to Gaia, closed his eyes, and _Reached_.

They were all there. Through his bond with one of the Novaks - and he, too, could tell now that it was only one, though he still could not tell which one - he could feel the other, and through them both he could just feel the other twenty-five cats arranged unevenly around them. He heard it as their agitation increased as he Reached further, deeper, going back through to the very thinnest cord, to the last one Deacon had bound, and snipped the thread of magic.

Light flared briefly, and the cat yowled with discomfort before slowly beginning to purr. Reassured, Sam moved backwards to the next to last cat and snipped that thread, then the next, and the next. The flares of light grew stronger and stronger, raising the levels of magical charge in the room and the pitch of yowling cats grew louder and louder. Sam clenched his eyes shut more tightly as sweat trickled down his forehead and tried to drip into them, stubbornly continuing to cut threads of magic binding unwilling familiars to a dead witch, until he was down to only two. A sob escaped his throat as he snipped the thread of Deacon's magic between them. The bond flared open wide, the last tether holding his familiar back from him finally cut, and the feline scream that tore through the air was triumphant. Distantly, he could hear someone shouting and the breaking of glass, but he couldn't focus on that, he had to hold on....

"By Gaia's grace, go now in peace!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, and let go.

The earth rumbled and shook and then was still. The crackling of magic in the air slowly dissipated. Sam swayed on his feet and was supported in an instant by a solid form a few inches shorter than him that smelled comfortingly of leather and smoke and bitter herbs.

"Oh, thank Gaia," he heard Jimmy breathe from somewhere to his left. "No offense, Sam, but--"

"But you love Amelia and this spares all of us the awkwardness," Sam rasped, smiling a little as he let himself be held up. "I get it, no offense taken." He reached up and found the hand of his familiar by touch, wrapping his fingers around his wrist lightly and savoring the way his magic slid easily between them, soothing them both. "Hey, Cas... you okay?"

"Don't ask stupid questions," Cas murmured next to his ear and held him tighter. Sam bit his lower lip and laughed softly, turning his head to let Cas steal his lips with a kiss as promised. They still had a lot to do, paperwork to file, Agent Hendrickson to update, Dean to face, and Animal Control to lie to about how the cats had all gone out a broken window and disappeared before they could be collected, but yeah. They would be okay.

 

**=End=**


End file.
